


Boldness and Bravery and Courage

by Multifandom_damnation



Series: More than just children [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Shazam! | Captain Marvel (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Best Friends, Captivity, Damian Wayne Feels, Death Rituals, Gen, Human Sacrifice, I'm Bad At Tagging, Immortality, Lazarus Pit, Rescue Missions, Restraints, Sleepovers, Sleepy Cuddles, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: “Oh, my dear boy.” Ra’s chuckled as he came closer to Damian, the sharp polished blade glinting green from the light of the Lazarus Pit. “I think you’ll find that this time, Batman isn’t going to save you.”A childlike and familiar voice rang out from behind them. “If Batman is indisposed, would a Superboy work for you instead?”(AKA Damian is saved from the clutches of his grandfather by the three people he least expected)





	Boldness and Bravery and Courage

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a short one, but I had this idea ages ago and finally decided to write it, so I hope you enjoy it despite how short it is. And I am SO bad at writing descriptions of fighting, just FYI if you didn't already know.

The entire underground base seemed to rumble with some sort of mighty movement, stones grinding against each other and pebbles falling from the highest peak to tumble down the side of the rocky slope and skitter across the ground. Nobody else seemed to notice this, however, except for Damian where he was strapped to a metal chair by thick chains, a spear held by a black-covered solider on either side held at his neck. Behind him, the Lazarus pit glowed an ominous green that shone onto the roof of the cavern and bathed Damian in a jade light. “For someone of your stature, Grandfather, you’ve chosen a base that has very poor infrastructure.”

Ra’s didn’t react to Damian’s words and didn’t seem to notice the shaking of his hideout, but stood over a covered table with his back to Damian. The cavernous place they were in seemed to shake again, tiny stones landing into the pit, and Damian wondered if he was imagining it. “If you have a plan for me, I suggest you tell it to me now. I get rather bored if criminals make me wait too long before explaining their diabolical plan.”

“Criminal?” Finally, Ra’s turned to Damian, his hands folded at his chest. “Is that what you think of your own Grandfather? Did the bat not teach you any respect?”

“No, he did.” Damian glowered up at the man. “I just have more respect for criminals than for you.”

The comment earned him a scowl from Ra’s, who turned back away from Damian and stormed to the tarp-covered table. He removed the tarp with a flourish that Damian had to roll his eyes at before dropping it unceremoniously on the floor where it pooled into an inky puddle. Damian still couldn’t see what was on the table, but something glinted in the low candlelight of the room. “You wanted to know my plan, grandson?” Ra’s asked Damian without turning around. “Sacrifice, Damian. Are you familiar? In order for me to keep my youth, I must sacrifice my own blood so that I can live for longer. I’m sure you’ve read about it in your history books.” He waved a hand absently from where he was hunched over the table. “I would use my daughter, but she means much more to me than you do, and this is the fate you chose once you refused me.”

Scoffing, Damian tested his bonds again to see how much room he had- not much. “And what of the Lazarus pit? Does that foul thing no longer bring about the desired effect?”

“Of course it does, my pits are flawless.” Ra’s lifted something off the table and held it carefully in his hands before reaching down and picking up another, glinting object. “But as you know, the more the pit is used, the more… side-effects accompany it. I’m sure you’re aware.”

Against his will, Damian couldn’t help his mind wandering to Jason and the sudden bursts of anger he was partial to, so raw and so random that it took everything Roy and Kori had to keep it in check. An emotion, while always there in some way or another, was so different from the young boy Damian had heard about in story’s and seen in photos taken by Bruce and home video’s recorded by Alfred. It took all he could not to twist his lips into a snarl at his grandfather as he turned to Damian with a knowing look, finally giving Damian a good look of what he was holding preciously in his possession. A wooden bowl with carvings along the edge and a long sacrificial blade with a similar carving to the bowl on its golden hilt. “Really, this is stone age sacrifice. I thought you would do something more extravagant than this.”

Shrugging, Ra’s held the blade loosely in one hand. Now that he had moved towards him, Damian could get a good glance at the other items on the table- herbs, animal remains, a separate knife and bowl that were both smaller than the one Ra’s brought towards Damian, black powder, poisonous bugs and something akin to a writhing reptile close to death. “It may be stone age but you must admit, it gets the job done.” The cavern shook again but this time, Damian chose to ignore it.

At a nod from Ra’s, the guard on Damian’s left grabbed his hair and forced his head back so his next was exposed, the other guard still pointing the spear at Damian’s clavicle. As Ra’s advanced, Damian tried to wiggle out of his bindings but came up flat. “Batman won’t let you do this. He’s coming for me, as we speak. Are you entirely certain that you’d want to face a ferocious Batman with his Robin, his _son_ , bleeding out, dead at your feet?”

“Oh, my dear boy.” Ra’s chuckled as he came closer to Damian, the sharp polished blade glinting green from the light of the Lazarus Pit. “I think you’ll find that this time, Batman isn’t going to save you.”

Damian was struck with the thought that maybe Ra’s was right, maybe Batman wouldn’t come and his father would leave him to die by the hands of his own grandfather. Panic began to set in once Ra’s raised the knife and made to bring it down on the exposed flesh of Damian’s neck, the bowl held underneath to collect the flow of blood when a childlike and familiar voice rang out from behind them. “If Batman is indisposed, would a Superboy work for you instead?”

 A sound of outrage escaped Ra’s throat as he whirled around to be met by Jon floating a few feet off the ground, red cape flapping in a non-existent wind and arms crossed against his chest. “I am not afraid of children.” Ra’s laughed at Jon, raising a hand to give another order to his men.

“No?” Jon cocked his head to the side and smirked at Damian. “How about a child and a couple of super-powered adults?”

There was a sound like thunder that seemed to rock the entire cavern as a hole in the wall exploded, spraying everything and everyone with heavy pieces of stone, and standing there was a trench coat-clad Abuse and a giggling Shazam. Billy landed close to Jon and waved at Ra’s. “Hi, there! We don’t want to hurt any more people than we have to, so if we could just have Damian we will be out of here right away.”

Growling, Ra’s raised his hand and pointed it at the new arrivals before he roared something in a different language and his men all attacked at once. Damian noticed, as his friends fought his grandfather’s army, that the shaking of the lair had entirely stopped.

As men approached them, Abuse and Shazam took them out with ease, being the larger men. Shazam flew higher in the hair and lightning crackled from between his fingers and he would fly down to lift men high into the air before dropping them from a height onto a group of their comrades. Abuse tossed men over his shoulder like they were rag-dolls, his knuckle-dusters flying towards faces and chests and stomachs. Damian was awed once again at how different and powerful their counterparts were to their actual beings

Jon flew towards Damian, evading and retaliating any attack made against him as he made his way to where Damian was bound. When Ra’s charged Jon with a samurai sword held in his hands and a roar of indignity, Jon backhanded him into the back wall, debris falling and landing on his head, spider web cracks spiralling outward from his landing. Jon effortlessly broke the chains around Damian and lifted him up into his arms.

Behind them, Damian saw Colin and Billy fighting off the many trained ninjas like they were nothing, dodging a weaving and laughing each time their attacks missed and the boys got one in instead. Jon whistled as he flew with Damian out the hole in the wall and the others jumped into action, pushing away their attackers and following them out the compound.

On their way out, both Billy and Colin punched their fits through the rock walls in an effort to cave the tunnel in to mask their escape and prevent anyone coming after them soon, and once they had stumbled out into the open air, a large chunk of stone fell from somewhere high above and blocked the entrance, a muffled rumbling symbolling the collapsing of the tunnel.

Despite not doing anything, Damian was breathless and Jon smirked down at him with a knowing look. It was the only time that Damian had not made a fuss about being carried like a damsel in Jons' arms. “Let’s get you home, Dames.”

Damian was asleep by the time they started flying again.

When he next opened his eyes, his head was pillowed on something soft and he was covered in something heavy and warm. When he coaxed himself into opening his eyes, he saw that instead of his Robin suit he was now wearing his favourite pair of pyjamas, he was in his own room at Wayne Manor, snuggled under the covers of his own bed. There was a weight on his legs and the sound of multiple sets of breathing that didn’t belong to him, and when he sat up he saw Colin, Jon and Billy all asleep at the end of the bed, blankets thrown over them. Colin was using Damian’s legs as a pillow.

Yawning softly, Damian sat up and observed the other boys sleeping around him. He didn’t want to wake them up, wanted to observe his wonderful friends who risked their lives to get him out of danger just a little while longer, but he must have accidentally moved his legs when he sat up and jostled Colin, who snorted himself awake and jerked upright, rubbing at his eyes. When he caught Damian’s eyes, he smiled, kicking Jon in the soldier to wake him up. “Hey D. Are you ok?”

“I’m not injured,” Damian answered as he blinked his heavy eyes. “You came for me. Why?”

Rubbing the crick out of his neck that he’d gotten from sleeping in an awkward position, Billy rolled his eyes. “Don’t be daft. You needed help, so we came. You’d do the same for us.”

“Yes, but how did you even know?” Damian asked. “They took me late last night before I was able to come home from patrol and regroup with father. How did you know where I was and who took me?”

Jon shrugged. “Your dad called my dad to see if you were at my place, so we went looking.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “I saw your fingerprints on the wall where you’d been taken and there was like, this green water on the floor and Bruce told us where those green pools would be so we just… made for the nearest one.”

“My idea,” Colin put in with a proud little smile that Damian couldn’t help laughing at.

“Well, regardless of who made which decision, I thank you for it.” Billy rolled his eyes as Damian spoke. “You risked your lives for me.”

Smiling a large, gap-toothed grin, Jon reached forward and wrapped his fingers around Damian’s hands. “Don’t worry man. We wouldn’t have just left you.”

Billy fiddled with the blanket between his lap. “You may be a grumpy pain every once and a while but we still love you.”

Colin laughed so hard he almost fell off the side of the bed Damian reached his hand out before he could make it too far. Rory was held securely in his lap, Colin’s fingers held under his armpits so it looked like the bear was waving at Damian with both arms. “Of course we were coming to come.” He grinned. “You had to have known that Damie. We wouldn’t have just forgotten about you and moved on.”

Eyeing the comforter, Damian shifted slightly. While he hadn’t known they were coming for him, he had certainly hoped, and despite how close they cut it, they did come for him. It was a feeling Damian was not entirely used to, at least not really. He knows his father loves him, and Alfred and his brothers, but never had Damian felt such love from others. “I didn’t think I would be found in time.” He admitted quietly. “I thought I was destined to die in that cave with my grandfather being the last face I ever saw. You three were the last people I was expecting to come to my aid.”

“Oh, Dames!” Billy fake sobbed, reaching forward and wrapping his arms around Damian’s neck which Damian had no choice but to lean into the abrupt and admittedly too tight embrace. “Don’t you worry! We’d never leave you alone to die like that! We love you too much!”

“Well- yes.” Damian awkwardly reached up and patted Billy’s arm, mouthing a desperate plea to a grinning Jon. “That’s quite kind of you. Now if you could please just let me go… this very instant…”

Instead of letting him go, two other sets of arms wrapped around them and two torsos collided into theirs and suddenly, Jon and Colin had joined their huddle of affection and Damian was being steadily pushed into the bed despite his complaining. Soon, they were all a giggling mess of tangled limbs lying in a cluster on the bed, resting quietly and comfortably on each other in the silence. Jon reached behind his head and plucked Rory from where he had sat, momentarily discarded, and passed it to Colin who accepted the teddy with a pleased hum.

Billy gripped the blanket and pulled it over the four of them, effectively covering them in warmth and comfort. Damian removed his foot from Jon’s face and picked pillows up off the floor and tossed them around the bed for added luxury, having resigned himself to his inescapable fate. Soon, they were all sleep in a pile, happy and calm and comfortable together and safe with the knowledge that in the morning they would still be together, knowing they were there for each other no matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't get it, the shaking of the mountain was Abuse, Shazam and Superboy trying to burst their way into the cavern and the reason it stopped was obviously because they had finally made their way in.


End file.
